Unregulated immigration is a tool for the rich & powerful, through their puppet Government, in their pursuit of the ultimate goal of a grateful, low-paid and compliant workforce? Sounds plausible. It's hard for a workforce to get uppity if they know they'll starve as a result, whilst folks who will gladly settle for less take their former jobs. Solid plan
Just walked past farage outside st pancras and he didn't have a fag on the go or a pint in his hand, I think we should be told the truth does he really drink and tab it or is it just posturing for the sun?
John Lydon on Russell Brand's call for revolution: 'The most idiotic thing I've ever heard' – video | Comment is free | The Guardian
Talking to Polly' "If you've got a pile of money in the bank you are going to vote for the party who loves people with a pile of money in the back, as for the rest of us .................." Both of them are multimillionaires ffs. Champagne socialists, both of them.
Just heard on the radio that Ferage and his gang are getting a major funding withdrawal from the EU. It's said that they (UKIP) were receiving funding into the millions of Euros. In typical spoilt brat style Ferage has accused the heads within the EU, of spiking him and his party.
Maybe he was no bigoted enough or hadnt renewed his subscription to the BNP. But its amusing the Farage moans about the EU and funding when members of his party abuse it and defraud and thieve. UKIP are a bunch of frauds and cheats, hence why Clactonites like em.
They all defraud and thieve,and they are all cheats,and liars...no need to pick on UKIP because you don't care for them... Occasionally,I've taken the time to read a party manifesto before a General Election...not one of them ever does what they say they are going to do....ever.... But they do plenty of things they omitted to mention prior to an election And they can't answer a question,they'll squirm and wriggle and stare you in the face but they'll never give a straight answer to the simplest question...
No, I'm not saying anything remotely like that. The topic under discussion is movement within the EU - Chinese, Africans, Asians and S Americans have nothing to do with this. Ever since the industrial revolution, there has been a strong current of people moving from the country to the town, from small towns to larger cities, and from other cities to major capitals. That happens within counties and regions, within nations, and within the EU as a whole. London is of course the biggest city and the biggest draw. A previous post suggested this phenomenon was somehow unique to the EU, but I pointed out it is in fact of wide and general applicability. That was my point. I said nothing about other continents.
Fair enough, Pete. But the point you have been attempting to make is that within the EU, countries should simply accept whatever immigration is thrust upon them. You have made the point that this is no more unreasonable than for people to migrate from different counties, or parts of the UK to other parts. This essentially sets up a straw man - ie that it is obviously reasonable for people to move around within the UK, ergo is it reasonable for them to have free movement within the EU. All I have attempted to do is point out the lack of similarity in these views. What is so special about the EU? The EU might be extended at any time. If it is hard to integrate people from Eastern Europe, for example, it is no more unreasonable to give the same right of work and domicile to anyone who wants to come. You might say that it is all a question of reciprocity. This sounds fine on paper until you work out that most Brits don't want to go and live in Gdansk. There will be places with net inflow and places with net outflow. Those with the net inflow should be able to decide how big that inflow is. I can't see why you would consider that unreasonable. The point is that you can't fit a quart into a pint pot - it's almost irrelevant what liquid you are trying to use. Indeed, it might be that some non-Europeans are easier to integrate. No doubt Canadians and Australians would cause few immigration issues (in the unlikely event that they wished to return to the mother country en masse).
A lot of folk keep moving into London and SE England from the peripheral parts of the UK. According to your argument, residents in London (such as myself) should be able to decide how big that inflow is. If we say London is too big or too crowded, we should be able to prevent inflows from Yorkshire, or Scotland. An iron curtain from Southampton to the Wash should do the trick - maybe a checkpoint at the Watford Gap.
Lots of Australians do actually like to come to the UK - for a couple of years. Then nearly all of them go back home and get on with their lives. Many of the arrivals from Poland and the Baltic states do the same.
The only special thing about the EU is that we are a member of it; we signed up to the treaties, we elect members to the parliament, and we appoint a Commissioner. We are not a member of the United States of America, or the Commonwealth of Australia, or China, or India, etc etc all of which have troubles of their own.
Sure, but that's not really the point is it? You can think of Britain as a bucket with a hole in the bottom. If you pour water in fast enough, you can still fill the bucket. How long this takes to happen depends on the size of the hole (emigration) and rate you pour the water (immigration). The fact that there is a hole doesn't really make any difference to the question - it only changes the timescale.
Free movement of peoples has a lot going for it but it also has some drawbacks. It seems totally logical and praiseworthy to give something like this a go. It also seems logical and praiseworthy to examine the experiment, take observations, and make tweaks to it to obtain the desired results. This is what I don't like: a treaty is something to be subscribed to forever and ever (in your philosophy), not something to be improved upon. History of course, shows that this doesn't happen and that everything is in flux. Where I part company withe out-of-the-EU crowd is that they say "Doesn't work. Ditch the whole thing." Whereas I say, let's be grown up about this and come up with something that works better. Problem seems to be that the EU is every bit as dogmatic as the anti-EU crowd. They don't want to admit that their current solution isn't perfect and seem to have no interest in tweaking it. The anti-EU people are also uninterested in getting a better result within a similar framework to the status quo. You might consider some of my posts anti-EU. Not so. What I am against is EU dogmatism. But I am equally against anti-EU dogmatism.
Another amusing argument but it doesn't cut the mustard. You are now making the point flippantly that I shouldn't necessarily be able to move from one street to the next within my village. From free movement of peoples you oppose no movement of peoples. The country is the base unit within which their is an accepted commonality of purpose and culture. Of course, we know that there are many variations and that perhaps Yorkshiremen would be uncomfortable (and perhaps resented) in Cornwall. I wasn't particularly keen on living in Liverpool, but the locals love it there. Whatever. You have to draw the line somewhere. I don't think that line needs to be drawn at the porous periphery of the EU. Whilst Yorkshiremen and Cornishmen speak vaguely the same language, they also have a lot more in common than they don't have. Albanians have a lot less in common with people from the Western Isles. Language, obviously, but also attitudes and culture. Apart from the money they bring with them, are Spaniards pleased to see a large influx of Britons, if those people insist in creating cultural islands with fish and chip shops and have no interest in flamenco (or donkey baiting)? I suspect not and it seems a perfectly reasonable point of view to me. As the world homogenises, people are becoming more jealous of their own culture. I applaud local culture and don't really want to see a homogenisation of the entire world, where the common language is always English and corporate brands. God knows the UK is dull enough as it is, with every town looking like just about every other town. Is there that much difference between Leicester, Northampton and Swindon? If you were parachuted in, would you know where you were if you couldn't read? Immigration is fine, but you want to keep it at a level where the local culture absorbs most of it and doesn't have to change much. Bits of the UK have passed that point, hence people's obsession with it. It also seems obvious to me that the government should be doing everything in its power to spread work opportunities and lifestyle attractiveness around the country, rather than just sucking more people into London and the South East which is now so jam-packed you can't move. Try taking a car out of London on a fine Saturday and heading for a day at the beach. You'll just spend all day in a traffic jam.
I appreciate your argument Glidd, but it holds water (ahem) only if the EU is considered as a free trade zone and customs union. Viewed in the context of such an enterprise the disaster of the vainglorious Euro and the invidious consequences of orchestrated mass migration might then be seen as problems to be tackled, tweaked and corrected with discussion and reform in the interests of member states. But the EU is not a free trade zone or a customs union, it never was and it does not operate in the interests of member states. The EU is a nascent superstate and monetary union and free movement are tools to advance the completion of that process. The damage done to individual economies, societies and cultures in the pursuit of this aim is of no interest to the architects of the superstate. If it were Greece and its 10 million citizens, to take one example, would not have been thrown to the wolves. Most serious people who oppose not only EU membership but the concept of the single state (and opposition, it cannot be stated often enough, is not confined to the UK; it is growing across the continent and in more militant forms than we see in this country) understand that the EU cannot be reformed back into something it was never intended to be in the first place. The problems created by the one-size-fits-all political and monetary straight-jacket are symptoms not of an EU that has gone off course and needs nudging back in the right direction but an EU that is proceeding entirely as planned. If the EU were to be disbanded and replaced entirely with a genuine free trade zone with no pooled sovereignty, political or monetary union and with countries like the UK, Switzerland and Norway taking the lead that would be an entirely different matter. Personally I would support such a thing and my understanding is that that is also Ukip's position. But that is not what "the Project" is about. It cannot be reformed, it was conceived with a single aim in view and with the opportunity for reform designed out and that is why an increasing number of the 580 million people of Europe want no part of it.
